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03-26-2019, 06:36 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: FL
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Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
By default, to enchant an item with Staff it must be no longer than 2 yards and made of once-living material.
I have concluded that the once-living requirement serves largely to keep a staff from serving as too good of a weapon (I point my sword at him and cast fireball!), while the length requirement obviously limits how much the staff can benefit distance modifiers. Given that one can fasten powerstones in a staff, am I right in assuming that some of the staff can be non-living? How much metal would interfere? I am curious what alterations to these two requirements others have tried and found successful. I am also curious what unusual items people have enchanted Staff on--the jutte seems valid if it's made of wood, for instance, and it looks like the sodegarami could take it--and how those have worked out. |
03-26-2019, 06:48 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
My assumption is that the staff enchantment doesn't apply to the parts that aren't a contiguous chunk of once-living material, and staff must be exposed.
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03-26-2019, 06:59 PM | #3 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
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As Anthony said, and IMO, the Staff spell applies to the "once living" portion of the staff. Any significant modifications to the staff, beyond basic ornamentations, endcaps, and jewel mounts would tend to dissipate the enchantment. Magic is fickle.
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Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
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03-26-2019, 07:02 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
I'm with the add your embellishments, just dont replace sections camp.
I had a character use the Staff spell on a whip once,I doubt I'm the only one.
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My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries |
03-26-2019, 07:05 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
It's an item in Magic Items 3.
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Fred Brackin |
03-28-2019, 07:06 PM | #6 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
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Oil and gas are "once living" materials and certainly qualify. |
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03-28-2019, 08:37 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
Depends on how much transformation you're willing to allow after the material is no longer living. Fossilized stone and petrified wood was "once living" in some sense -- or if you want to get really extreme, carbon from an ancient race in another star system that's been fused into heavier elements all the way up to iron in a series of supernovas and finally got forged into your steel sword was "once living". But that may well not be true for magical correspondences, no matter how strictly "logical" it might be. Magic isn't physics or chemistry, and may well not be too impressed with convolutions of those modern definitions. "Once living" is a technical term only in the context of the magic system in the setting.
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03-28-2019, 10:52 PM | #8 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
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And I doubt it means 'organic' in the sense that petrochems are 'organic'. |
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03-28-2019, 11:40 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
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In any case, the proper way to handle this is cast flesh to stone on someone, cast stone to metal on the petrified form, and forge the result into a sword. |
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03-26-2019, 07:06 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: God's Own Country
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Re: Staff Spell Item Prerequisites
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Part of the point is to increase your reach, but in RAW it's used on sticks from short wand- to staff-sized--the height of a human. Note, though, that a Giant giant could wield a Staff staff 10 yd long with equal validity (at a cost multiplier of 1 x the number of 2-yd (human-height) lengths). The use of 'living material only' is a setting limitation based on extending the touch of the wielder magically, using Correspondence magic. A GM could change this, and so could an enterprising enchanter. The amount of metal or other non-living material you could attach while still having it be usable would be the point where it changes from 'a wooden/bone/boiled-leather staff with metal and gem bits' to 'a metal and gem staff with a wooden core'. So, very generally, about 1/2 the weight or volume should be ex-living material. It has, in published material, been used on at least one leather whip and been mentioned as a possible addition to a wooden shield.
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Paul May | MIB 1138 (on hiatus) |
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Tags |
brainstorm, house rules, staff spell |
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